The Clean Air Follies Continue

Updated March 18, 2005 12:01 a.m. ET

One of these days it would be nice if the Bush Administration finally decided whether it really believes in the power of markets in environmental policy.

The EPA has issued several rules over the past couple of years -- two of them within the past week -- intended to build on the successful "cap-and-trade" philosophy first articulated in the 1990 revisions to the Clean Air Act. The basic idea is that, rather than government mandating pollution-control for every source, it would be better simply to set overall...